Student Profile
Ken Devine , 2002
One week after graduating from Miami in May 2002, I began my career as a technical writer for Gallagher Financial Systems, Inc. (www.gogallagher.com). Based in Nashville, Gallagher is a medium-size company that specializes in highly configurable computer software for the mortgage-lending industry. I work with about eight other technical writers, and the group is pretty close-knit, which is great. Everyone is real supportive and funny, and the work is a lot of fun. As a member of the Communications Department, it is my job to write, edit, and publish corresponding documentation in PDF and online help format for our clients, who are typically mortgage-lending companies. With our documentation, clients are able to easily learn, reference, and follow procedures for using our software. Each month, eight other technical writers and I are assigned a different group of documentation files that we are responsible for updating through a company tracking system. We proof each other’s work and rely on ourselves, computer programmers, and other subject matter experts to match our documentation with our ever-evolving software. Admittedly, the job has had a high learning curve and has been difficult at times. But with the knowledge and experience that I gained from Miami’s BATSC program, I have proven myself in a short time among a veteran team of writers; I feel confident about my career in technical communication.